I pulled a thin white rag from my back pocket and draped it over his eyes. I lifted the bucket and poured water on the rag. With one hand, Rever slowly lowered the saturated rag until it covered Emanuel’s mouth and his upturned nose. He put his hand over the wet rag, suffocating him for thirty seconds to increase the carbon dioxide level in Emanuel’s bloodstream. When Rever lifted his hand, I dumped water over the rag for sixty seconds. Then, Rever ripped the rag off his face. Emanuel gagged, sucking in three giant mouthfuls of air. He slapped the rag over his face and started the process again. We repeated the entire thing a half dozen times until Emanuel’s lips were blue, and his entire body trembled.
Rever slammed all four legs of Emanuel’s chair on the ground. “Are you working with Juan Alvarez?”
“Fuck you,” Emanuel said, his voice hoarse.
Rever crouched on the floor and plunged his knife under Emanuel big toenail. He twisted the knife in a seesawing motion until the toenail peeled off Emanuel’s foot.
A scream echoed through the room, and Emanuel jerked against his restraints. Blood pooled on the cement floor beneath his foot.
“Do you want to answer me now?” Rever barked.
Emanuel glared, his entire body vibrating with anger and hatred. He clenched his jaw, his eyes blinking rapidly. “Go to hell! You can do this for days, and I won’t tell you a damn thing.”
“My pleasure. I was just getting started,” Rever said, thrusting his knife under the next toenail. Bile rolled in my stomach as another bloody nail skittered across the floor, brushing the tip of my shoe. Emanuel sagged in his chair.
It didn’t look like Rever minded the violence. In fact, he seemed to be in his element. Inhaling through my mouth, I suppressed the urge to vomit on the floor. Emanuel had to believe Rever and I were united in everything in order for this to work. Likewise, I’d be dumb to expose any weaknesses to Rever. We were brothers, but loyalty only stretched so far in our world. Loyalties shifted like the wind. Money and power spoke louder than blood ties.
“Do you have anything to tell me now?” Rever yelled.
“I paid the Alvarez whore to ride your dick. Did she tell you that? She fucks any guy who shows interest, but I had to pay her to fuck you,” Emanuel sneered. “How does that make you feel?”
Rever lurched forward, slamming his fist into Emanuel’s jaw. His head pitched backward, and blood mixed with spittle showered the front of Rever’s shirt.
“You’re pathetic,” Emanuel growled. Blood dripped down his chin from the corner of his mouth. “No wonder Ignacio begged Ryker to help him. You’re so easy to manipulate.”
Rever jabbed the tip of his knife into Emanuel’s neck. “I should kill you right now.”
Emanuel lifted his chin, his dark eyes sizzling with undisguised anger. “Do it. I dare you.”
I clamped my hand around Rever’s wrist. His muscles coiled under my fingers and his eyes glittered. The coppery scent of blood settled in the air like a heavy mist, clogging my throat and clinging to my skin.
“Don’t let him get to you,” I hissed. “He’s trying to rattle you. He wants you to kill him quickly because he knows it’s better than the alternative.”
Rever closed his eyes and inhaled, his nostrils flaring. His right eyelid twitched and the muscles in his forearms corded. The seconds ticked like hours. Then, he nodded and yanked his wrist from my hold.
“What do you think, Ryker? Another toenail or should I start cutting off fingers?” He waved his knife back and forth between Emanuel’s hands and feet like a music conductor.
I shifted my weight as I pretended to consider the question. “Finish the toenails on that foot, then move to his hand on the opposite of his body,” I said.
Rever laughed. “I like how you think, Ryker.”
I’d roughed people up in the past, but I’d never crossed the line into the world of torture. I should’ve been revolted and horrified, but the longer I watched Rever, the more immune I became to Emanuel’s pain. With every toenail that flicked across the room, the pain lining Emanuel’s face bothered me less and less. Black and white no longer existed. Everything was colored in shades of gray.
Maybe I’d regret this later, but for now, I felt vindicated and refreshed. Emanuel had manipulated Ignacio, Rever, Juan Alvarez, and me to some extent. This was the price of his arrogance. My stomach clenched at the thought. How much longer until I embraced Ignacio’s philosophy of killing and torturing traitors to the fullest extent? How much longer until I was a mirror image of my father?
“Okay. Okay. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” Emanuel yelled, interrupting my train of thought. His entire body shivered and red lines mapped the whites of his eyes. “Just stop. I can’t take any more.”